Assessing the impact of economic and cultural diversity on tourism development in Nigeria

The paper examined the impact of culture on tourism and economic development in the Northern and Southern part of Nigeria. Primary and secondary sources of data were adopted to elicit information for the study. The primary sources involved the use of questionnaire survey, interview sessions and telephone survey while the secondary sources involved the use of documented information on the internet, registry/records of the major hotels and tourist attractions within the study locations. The study revealed that 70% of the entire visitors in 2018 visited tourist attractions within the southern part of the country showing that there were more tourism activities in the Southern part than in the northern part of the country. The study also revealed that tourism attracted benefits such as employment, infrastructural development, provision of basic amenities, increased family income and increased government revenue through tax. Irrespective of the benefits, some challenges such as insecurity, lack of government and private sector interest, indifference in religious and traditional values and poor road network were observed to hinder the growth of the tourism industry. The study also revealed that 72% of visitors to the study locations attended cultural events while the remaining 28% visited natural sites. In view of these findings, the study revealed that the tourism industry in the northern part of the country suffered from some peculiar challenges such as extreme religious and traditional value system which forbids the involvement of women in tourism industry activities and interaction with strangers. With these finding, the study clearly emphasized that economic and cultural diversity had negative impact on the growth of the tourism industry in the northern part of Nigeria.